All due respect to Brian Burke, I believe he is wrong about one thing. The quote:

Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke isn't a fan of Kovalchuk-like contracts - ProHockeyTalk - Hockey - NBC Sports
"No one is going to be able to prove circumvention until one of these guys retires," the Leafs GM said. "And by then we'll be in a new CBA. But I'm comfortable that a number of these players are, in fact, going to walk. "I don't believe these players are going to play in their mid-40s. And I don't believe they're going to play for what they're making in those final years. So it defies logic. It may not defy the CBA. But it defies logic to think that players are going to serve the term of all these contracts . So that's why we don't do them. And a number of teams don't do them. If the league thinks that this is one that they need to look into, then we support that."

That assumes that the only way to prove circumvention is to demonstrate that this one guy (Kovalchuk) will retire before he gets to the end of his contract. Obviously, one can't prove that Kovalchuk will not play till he's 44 anymore than one can prove Kovalchuk is not immortal. Yet the argument, "we just don't know if he's immortal, we will have to wait and see what happens," as the basis of an employment contract that extends to the end of time, is incontrovertibly stupid. And we wouldn't have to wait till the end of time (or his death) to prove it either.

More this afternoon...